Created by
Gary B. Rollman,
Emeritus Professor of Psychology,
University of Western Ontario
(In addition to links below, see weekly archives in the right column)

Tuesday, May 19, 2015

Solicitation of Public Comments on Draft National Pain Strategy - The Interagency Pain Research Coordinating Committee (IPRC)

A core recommendation of the 2011 IOM Report: Relieving Pain in America is: "The Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services should develop a comprehensive, population health-level strategy for pain prevention, treatment, management, education, reimbursement, and research that includes specific goals, actions, time frames, and resources." The IOM report highlighted specific objectives for the strategy:

Describe how efforts across government agencies, including public–private partnerships, can be established, coordinated, and integrated to encourage population-focused research, education, communication, and community-wide approaches that can help reduce pain and its consequences and remediate disparities in the experience of pain among subgroups of Americans.

Include an agenda for developing physiological, clinical, behavioral, psychological, outcomes, and health services research and appropriate links across these domains.

Improve pain assessment and management programs within the service delivery and financing programs of the federal government.

Proceed in cooperation with the Interagency Pain Research Coordinating Committee and the National Institutes of Health's Pain Consortium and reach out to private-sector participants as appropriate.

Involve the appropriate agencies and entities.

Include ongoing efforts to enhance public awareness about the nature of chronic pain and the role of self-care in its management.

The Department of Health and Human Services charged the Interagency Pain Research Coordinating Committee (IPRCC) with creating a comprehensive population health-level strategy to begin addressing these objectives.